


Duststorm

by orphan_account



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Explicit Language, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study, Smoking, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 01:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8308951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I taught you everything you know,”  “Not everythin’,”Five things Jesse learns from Reyes, and one thing Jesse already knew.





	

**i.**

Reyes signs his papers with _G. Reyes_. All in cursive handwriting too. Nothing at all like what he expects from the demon bull that took him in, but he's getting the feeling that Reyes is used to defying expectations. 

It's even complete with all the fancy loops and flourishes that make it difficult to read. Jesse has to squint, taking his time to pick apart what the lines on the paper mean. He can read. Not _well_ , granted, but he can read.

"Blackletter is worse," Reyes assures him, as if it makes anything better. He shows Jesse a few books and pens. Shows him the thicks and the thins and how the hand moves to create the letterforms. "If you can read Blackletter, you can read regular writing just fine. The reverse isn't true."

Jesse asks, "What the fuck is this?"

His voice is terse. His brow knotted with quiet fury and his jaw a rigid line. He doesn't slam the papers down, but it's close. Reyes stares at him, eyes hard, but not unkind.

“Keep at it, you’ll figure it out.”

Patience. Careful, stupid _fucking_ patience, his mind scrawls and Jesse feels an itch building beneath his skin. Reflexively, his index finger twitches.

Reyes' eyes don't even flick down. _Jack wouldn't have noticed_ , comes the immediate observation, _because Reyes has senses like a bird of prey._

Now Jack - Jesse likes Jack. Jack's got a smile like gold and he's a little less clever than Reyes. He’s quick, alright. Fleet of foot and even faster with his mind. No less lethal than the rest of the founders who managed to end an international crisis in the span of five years.

Reyes is sharp, however, which is far more dangerous. So for the time being, Jesse likes Jack better. Easier to charm. Jack doesn't trust him, but he learns to. Jesse teaches him how.

( Reyes trusts him, which is what frightens him. Reyes knows exactly who Jesse is and trusts Jesse to do what Jesse would do. _Too clever - the man is way too clever._ )

A long moment passes and Reyes' gaze has moved from cool neutrality to an almost mild amusement. Jesse grits his teeth, tilts his head and screws his hat down further.

Thinks, _I can be doing far better things with my life._

Then he wonders why Reyes knows about Blackletter. About why it matters that the Germans wrote differently over a hundred years ago. About why Gutenberg matters and why _Jesse_ even remembers that.

He runs his mind ragged trying to figure out if there is actually some deeper lesson to all this or if Reyes is bullshitting him. Then he remembers that this is _Reyes_ and Reyes never does things without a reason.

Justification in mind, he digs through the books, determined to find the secret.

They pass the next few hours in silence. Reyes fills out paperwork and Jesse reads.

 

* * *

 

**ii.**

Jesse's sixshooter is shaking in his palm. A thousand metallic vibrations sounding in the chamber as he stares, eyes wide and blood-filled at the man in the valley below them. He's laying flat on his stomach, gun in one hand and binoculars in the other.

Reyes is a tense and rigid form beside him. Absolutely still, not even disturbing the dust and sand gathered beneath him. Reyes is quiet. Deadly. Lethal. A twisted snake coiled around the rocks and simply waiting.

Jesse almost stands up. Almost walks straight off the cliff to storm over and put an even six bullets in the man's body. Even if it means broken legs and shattered feet from the fall,

He looks to his left, teeth clenched and breathing hard.

Reyes gives him a glance and shakes his head once very slowly. Even as he turns back to watch the group, Jesse notices the way Reyes' gaze lingers.

He wonders if anyone else knows how much Reyes watches. How Reyes knows more than he lets on, cards folded twice each and pressed tightly underneath his tongue.

 _He's being kind here_ , Jesse realizes as lightning strikes his heart. Reyes is showing him this much. Allowing him see past the veil of bricks and into the deeper qualities of stillness and reservation.

 _Kindness_ , he thinks, throat suddenly thick with honey. And? Something else. There was something else lurking in the dark pools of gasoline that Reyes had for eyes.

Then Reyes melts back into the sandstone. Unreadable. Unreachable.

Jesse closes his eyes and presses his face against the ground. His breath kicks up the grains and he can feel sand shifting down his throat. He focuses on that. Allows the burn of discomfort to spread throughout him, entire form tense and vibrating with restrained energy.

 _Wait_ , he tells himself. _Wait._

He has waited for death for longer. For this, he can find the power to restrain himself.

So he breathes out, eyes screwed shut and muscles tense. The night is long and silent. Cicadas chitter in polite conversation around him as his body buzzes with them in sync. Reyes is solid and firm; a stoic anchor as finally, the rage and memories begin to bleed out of him.

Jesse holsters his gun after a moment and he sinks into the earth.

Reyes recognizes the guy too. Hard to miss with the tattoos, especially since both of them know the patterns so well. Jesse goes to reach an arm back to touch the place between his shoulder blades when Reyes inky black eyes flash. Jesse can feel the shake of the head before he sees it and he brings his arm down in a stilted motion.

There's a million different shifts in Reyes' face and Jesse isn't quick enough to catch them all. Isn't smart enough either to even begin to decipher what they might mean and what they reflect of the dark void behind Reyes' eyes.

Eventually, Jesse feels a finger prod his shoulder. Doesn't even need to glance down to know it's pointing to what's been stitched into his clothes.

He breathes out again, tired and drained, but calmer. On Reyes' signal, they descend and begin their mission.

 

* * *

 

**iii.**

It's dark outside. Low and late in the night, an entire dome of stars scattered above them. Reyes likes to watch the stars, says he never saw much of them in L.A. and in the military, he had been more focused on rising through the ranks or saving the world to really take the time to appreciate the fact that the sky wasn't falling.

When he thinks he has the timing just right, Jesse asks, “Did you think I would’ve survived prison?”

Reyes doesn’t answer, slumping further into a slumber, and Jesse takes a page from his book and looks up the watch the stars.

 _What d’you see in them?_ Jesse wonders with his furrowed brow and solemn frown. That cold sliver of fear in his veins melts away in the hot desert night with Reyes asleep. He can handle waiting a little bit longer to hear the answer.

Because what if Reyes says,  _No_. Says,  _No, you would have died, chamaco. They would have eaten you alive._  And doesn't that inspire confidence? Reyes doesn’t make a point of lying. He’s too blunt for that. Too honest with the way he says exactly what he believes in sixteen different ways and a silver tongue.

 _Thank-you_ , Jesse wants to say. _Thank-you_ because Reyes is still here and that’s a lot better than most people. At the same time, the words don’t fit nicely on his tongue. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, only that there’s a large swollen wound of gratitude inside of him.

He’s itching with the urge to repay Reyes. To try with words instead because everything else Reyes has rejected. Rejected Jesse throwing his body into the line of fire, rejected Jesse’s violence, his suicidal bravery. Everything that Jesse has tried to offer, Reyes has met with a grim line of his mouth and a silent shaking of his head.

And it irks Jesse. It stabs at everything he’s come to know as truth because he’s scared of what Reyes might ask. What Reyes will demand of him when the moment is right and Jesse knows he can’t say _no_. Can’t rebel anymore, not now. Not with everything Reyes has _given_ him and the debts Jesse keeps accumulating.

Jesse falls asleep asking the stars what Reyes would do, more out of humour than anything else. He doesn’t believe in any higher powers. Felt abandoned by the gods and the powers that be the moment they ripped the ground from beneath him and left him to learn how to survive on his own.

Two hours later, he wakes up and the stars are still above him. He buries the lingering terrors in the soil beneath him and watches the sky again. Differently this time. He’s tracing patterns, lining the inside of his eyelids with silly constellations that probably aren’t real, but hold special meaning anyway.

Reyes is still at his side, awake. His quiet eyes are sharp and attentive, keeping watch over him.

He tells Fareeha about it after they get back to Gibraltar. Asks her if Reyes is one of those types who can just fall asleep at will. She looks at him, startled.

Tells him, “Reyes doesn’t sleep.”

Jesse freezes. Then he thinks, chewing on the inside of his cheek softly as he looks at Reyes in a different light. This time, he doesn't even offer to give Fareeha a piggyback ride in return for her information and Jesse watches as, just like her mother, she smiles like she's figured something out.

 

* * *

 

**iv.**

When Reyes fights, it's all control. Tightly monitored moves that are at maximum efficiency, never sacrificing effectiveness for style. He's quick and simple, fighting with pure intent to kill or take down.

At least, that's what Ana tells him. She's at his side as they both watch Reyes and Jack spar. There's an easy smile on both of them as they dance, too used to each other's moves. It's familiar and all fluid grace, their strikes all slotting together in a smooth tide of battle.

For a moment, Jesse believes that they aren't mass murderers with the capability to level entire cities and ruin lives.

Ana's eyes drift towards him as he hunches over and crosses his arm, lips curling into a bitter scowl. He beats the loose kerchief around his neck, leaning back against the wall.

He doesn’t know why he’s here. Something in the air makes him uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s just Jack, Ana and Reyes around him, the training room devoid of any other people to soak up the tension. Reyes had pulled him aside, grin flicking across his teeth and told him, _Just keep your mouth shut and watch._

And he thinks about what the other agents must be thinking. It’s obvious now to everyone that Commander Reyes has some sort of special interest in him. Reyes has invested this much and Jesse can’t for the life of him think _why_ because all Jesse has to his name is a gun, his hat and his impeccable aim.

There’s a sour sensation at the back of his throat when he thinks about Deadlock. How they had wrangled him up, placed a gun in his hands and told him to shoot.

Reyes took his guns away.

He can’t even fiddle with the safety, can’t even take solace in the weight of metal in his palms. So he settles back on the wall and he watches. Does what he can to imitate what Reyes does so easily. Jesse can spot a target from far away, but Reyes can determine if the angle of a guy's lips means he's bluffing or serious.

( _The trick, McCree, is to notice it_ , flow Reyes' words of wisdom as they pack up for the training gear for the day. Jesse doesn't know why he's always saddled with the job, but at least it's something to eat up the hours at night.

Reyes looks at him, mouth a gently curved line: _Pay attention. Might learn something._ )

He looks long and hard. Sees how Reyes never dodges wide; he keeps it close and tight. _Personal_. Jesse leans in closer and he can feel Ana's eyes burrowing into him, but that all fades away as Reyes catches Jack's wrist with a snap.

He sees how Reyes' muscles ripple with restrained force. How there’s a twitch before a strike and a tense before a block. Jack tries to lunge in and knock Reyes off his feet, but Reyes is already moving liquidly around him, jabbing once before sliding back in front.

It's almost languid. Like watching a vein pulse and dribble blood slowly. A quiet burning storm brewing and blowing past as it picks up debris, waiting for the right moment to strike.

It's everything that Jesse is not. There's no urgency. No bite or bark. Nothing feral or wild about how Reyes lashes out or even takes the few hits Jack manages to land. It's all ... _purposeful_. Every bit of it. A series of compounding calculated strikes all coming together before Jack even thinks to move his body.

He thinks back. Thinks back to long ago when he was younger and wilder and _desperate_. He remembers first seeing Reyes - the devil with two shotguns and a fucking _beanie_ barking orders as he annihilated the wheels on cargo trucks and descended upon them. People fell down around Jesse and he thought _Oh God, I'm going to die tonight._

And then the world slowed as adrenaline thundered in his ears. He felt his arm move and his finger twitch. And then the demon was upon the rest of them, eyes dark and furious.

It was a storm. It roared; an entire hurricane made of fire and wind blasted through them and they hadn’t been prepared at all.

Reyes had used everything at his disposal. Chucked a broken piece of wood to save a bullet, used a stray street sign to bash someone's head in. It screamed of the same experiences that left Jesse with nicked fingers and dirt caked underneath his nails. It was a familiar keen resourcefulness that didn’t discriminate so long as the job got _done_ and they still had a pair of good lungs at the end of the day. Survival -- he had been looking at a survivor, but Reyes had been so much _more_ than that. 

Jesse could only watch in horror as everything he had known was methodically being dismantled by men in black armour and dragons stitched on their shoulders.

He pulls out of the memory, head bobbing above sand.

There's a heavy pressure settling on his chest now and Jesse feels dizzy. Now that he's seen it, his mind is devouring every detail. Every flinch, touch, shift and even flick of an eye - it's all falling down too quickly on his mind and _fuck_ he needs to breathe.

Jesse's eyes snap closed and he tells himself _Wait. Wait._ The world blurs back into a mess, single-minded clarity fading. Ana is there, but she's a cloud of water and he loses traction on her presence.

( _Is this what it's like for you? To notice everything?_ )

He wants to fire a gun. Wants to shut his eyes against the world, feel the wind grazing his cheek and the sand deep in his blood. Wants it more and more as the tension seems to shift again, the very air charged with gunpowder as Ana keeps watching from a distance and Reyes and Jack fight in the background.

He pulls down the brim of his hat and the fight continues without him.

"I'm gettin' bored of watchin' two old men dance," he drawls as he turns on his heel, "Y'all have fun now."

He catches the glimpse of Jack’s face snapping towards him before the sound of two bodies hitting the mats follows after Jesse is turned away.

Jack shouts, Reyes laughs. It's not smug. It's barely a sound or even a puff of air, but it sounds _victorious_.

 

* * *

 

**v.**

Reyes smokes.

Jesse catches him after a mission gone wrong on the roof. He's unarmoured, hat in his lap and legs dangling over the edge. He can't see Reyes' face, but his shoulders are a rigid arc and, well, he's _smoking_.

He had lost a few friends ( he has _friends_ ) in the mission too --

( His name is _Jesse Fucking McCree_ and he has never been afraid of anything in his life. )

With a deep breath, Jesse walks over. He knows enough about Reyes now to make sure he's heard. Not that Jesse can even walk quietly enough to surprise Reyes on most ( all ) days, but he doesn't want to take that chance.

Reyes remains still, smoke drifting in lazy coils like a funeral pyre.

"Hey boss," Jesse tests as he stops behind Reyes. Far enough away where Reyes can't suddenly lash out and grab him, but still close enough where Reyes can lunge and snatch Jesse's ankle.

Silence.

Jesse shifts his weight, pressing his tongue against the back of his bottom teeth. Feels along the ridges, weighing the possible outcomes in his mind. He knows he won't walk away and tell a soul of what he's seen. That's not - that's not something he would _do_.

Even back then.

Silently, he wonders if Reyes knows that. If Reyes is perfectly aware that even if Jesse has nothing other than a good aim going for him, he can be quiet about the things, the _important_ things, that he knows about.

And knowing Reyes, which Jesse is quickly figuring out that he honestly _doesn't_ , Reyes probably does.

"Boss," he tries again and this time, Jesse moves to sit beside him.

He's older now. Quieter, too. They both are, technically, but while Reyes seems to wither, Jesse is flourishing. His frame is finally starting to fill out with muscle and weight. Jesse’s beginning to forget the sting of hunger and he doesn’t know if that’s good or not, but Reyes doesn’t say anything, so he supposes it’s good.

Even with the years paved between them, it feels like _before_. _Before_ , when the world was much easier ( _shoot first, questions later_ ) and didn’t feel as solid beneath his feet. When Jesse was angry and broken and _proud_ , teeth knocked in and face stinging with rebellion. There had been such a distance between them. A dangerous canyon with every bridge and olive branch being blown away in the wind. Treacherous badlands that make his feet ache thinking about how Jesse _hated_ Reyes and how Reyes never gave up.

But it’s different now.

When Jesse’s mother died, he held onto her. Held onto like her because she had been the only thing in his goddamn life left after Deadlock stormed in and took everything away, leaving a gun, his name and the brand on his back. He shot people dead to keep her, shot straight and true and drained his blood of any good because she was his _mother_ and Jesse loved her.

( _Do you miss her?_ , Reyes asks as he takes Jesse’s arm to sew a gash closed with his usual precision. Idly, he wonders which came first: fabric or human bodies. Reyes is awfully good at this. So good - Angela ought to be impressed.

Then his head swims again and Reyes snaps at him to focus. He tries to remember how they got here. Whether it was the talk of marbles or cows that led them down this path. Whether he wants to talk _at all_. The _nearness_ of this makes Jesse’s throat close up and it unsettles his stomach. It’s warm. Too hot.

Reyes jabs a needle in him and string follows.

 _She died when I was young,_ he says, tracing his memories to back before this haze of pain and dripping blood. He falls silent, trying to bring up more than that, but he’s choking the words down. His heart is too open and there’s a fifty-fifty percent chance he’s going to remember this after.

 _My father died too_ , Reyes says and Jesse’s eyes snap open. He doesn’t remember them closing, but that’s alright. They’re open now. He needs to listen to this. Needs to listen because it took him almost an entire year to figure out that Reyes’ first name is _Gabriel_ and even then it was only because Fareeha told him.

For a long second, they’re just focused on breathing. A sharp pain blossoms in his wrist and Jesse’s opening his mouth to say _Reyes, what the fuck_ before he realizes Reyes is pinching him.

 _I can’t remember his face,_ And Jesse thinks with an awful jolt that he doesn’t remember his mother’s face either. )

If this was _before_ , Jesse would have moved on. He’s only got the muscles in his body to carry his burdens and dead bodies only weigh him down. He leaves bodies in the dust, waits for the desert to rise and claim them. The heatwaves sing and Jesse doesn’t listen to their orchestrations, knowing it’d be worse if he does. He doesn't like to dwell on old ghosts. Losing people is something that _happens_ and Jesse’s keen enough to know that Reyes has lost a lot of people in his life. In fact, he should be _used_ to this and Jesse considers saying it out loud, but he thinks better of it.

Can already anticipate what Reyes will say; words are Reyes’ greatest weapons. He’s not a poet, he’s a soldier. He fires bullets instead of soliloquies, but they're no less destructive or enlightening. Reyes can find a way to make water sound _cryptic_ and turn the air into poison with a flick of his tongue.

 _Clever_ , Jesse thinks, _Reyes is very clever._

Jesse isn’t clever, but he’s no fool either. He’s not _deliberate_ like everything that Reyes is, but he’s smart. At least, smart enough to know that Reyes is a book and when it’s closed, it’s quiet, but sometimes it’s open and its voice soft and gentle and _bright_. Everything important is hidden in between the lines and Jesse knows how to read in Blackletter.

So he doesn’t say anything. He takes his words and slides them back, holding them close in his mind and watches them dry up inside of him.

Jesse isn’t sure what Reyes is to him. Maybe, in a year or two he’ll known, but not now. Every time he thinks about it, all he can see is murky waters with marigolds floating on them. It’s nothing like the apricots that spring to his tongue when he thinks of his mother.

For what it’s worth, he feels warm.

Wordlessly, Reyes offers him a cigarette and they spend hours in silence and eventually watch the sun disappear over the horizon, welcoming the night into their blood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**vi.**

"I taught you everything you know,” and it’s a crawl of fire and smoke. Twisted ashen harmonics that sound revolting and nothing like the gruff kindness and sandstone of Reyes’ lessons.

Jesse feels cold.

Feels far away from himself. Foreign. Not really _there_ because this can’t be Reyes. This can’t be the same Reyes who taught him that he is a human being. Who took him in and filled his head with kind words and knowledge. Who made him realize he is worth something and that second chances don't always mean _better_ , but they do mean  _different_ and that's all they can ever ask for sometimes.

There is no life inside this corpse.

“Not everythin’,” Jesse says and he fires.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up at my [tumblr](http://iconoclastis.tumblr.com/).
> 
> in the haze of school, haven't had much time to write lately, but this has been burning in the back of my mind for a long time, so it feels good to finally get it out of the way. first time writing jesse so hopefully that went over well.


End file.
